Crackly recording reveals final moments of five young N.S. fishermen whose boat capsized one year ago

Mary Hopkins strains to hear the sound of her son’s voice, searching for it in the background of a crackly recording, wishing with all her might that Joel, her boy, might say something, anything, just to let her hear him one more time, just to let her know that he was okay. That he wasn’t scared. That he didn’t suffer. That he didn’t lose hope.

“It is hard,” Ms. Hopkins says, from Woods Harbour, N.S. “The Coast Guard and the police had all the families down to Yarmouth, N.S., about a month after it all happened, and we listened to the recording together for the first time.

“I know that most of us, the mothers, we sit there trying to listen for our sons in the background. We want to hear something. We want to hear their voices, but…”

But, for four mothers, four families, there is nothing to hear no matter how hard they wish for it. The Miss Ally, a 13.5-metre fishing boat, cast off from the wharf at West Head on Cape Sable Island on February 12, 2013. The young men aboard her — captain Katlin Nickerson, Billy Jack Hatfield, Steven Cole Nickerson, Tyson Townsend and Joel Hopkins — were all good friends.

They grew up together around Woods Harbour, beside the sea, and set out in fair weather at a time of year when the ocean can get wild. Within a few days they were gone. Lost. Their boat capsized. Their bodies never found. Their families left to pick up the pieces.

Last week, thanks to a CBC investigative effort, a recording of the conversation between Katlin Nickerson and the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax — a recording the families heard in Yarmouth not long after their sons were lost — was made public.

It is not easy listening.

“Is this the Miss Ally?” Halifax asks.

“Yes, this is the Miss Ally,” Katlin Nickerson replies, his voice steady, betraying no signs of distress.

“OK, good,” says Halifax. “If you are asking about the Coast Guard ship, Sir William Alexander, they are about 50 miles away.”

“OK,” says Katlin Nickerson. And later: “Everything seems to be OK, as good as they can be … the wind has changed direction, making it much harder to make any headway at all. I don’t know if there is anything you can help me out with there…”

A subsequent note in the Joint Rescue logbook, also obtained by CBC, states:

“Miss Ally has missed his [communication] schedule by over 15 minutes. He was advised to call us every hour to inform us that all was well onboard and if we did not receive his call we would be very concerned that something went terribly wrong.”

Amid high winds and brutal 10-metre seas a monster was lurking — a 20-metre wave that would end the Miss Ally’s run for safety. Della Sears, Katlin’s mother, spoke to her son on the boat’s satellite phone. He sounded calm. They lost the connection.

“I heard his voice,” she told CBC. “He wasn’t afraid. At that time I don’t think any of them were afraid. I believe they thought they were going to get in.”

The families don’t blame the Coast Guard. They don’t blame anyone.

“Fishing is dangerous,” Mary Hopkins says. “And the boats still go out. The men around here, the men who stay, they fish.”

George Hopkins, Mary’s husband, loves telling a story about the time Joel moved out to Alberta, like so many young men from Nova Scotia do, looking for work. He lasted two weeks, came home and declared to his parents: “There is no ocean in Alberta.”

The families of the Miss Ally keep in touch, and talk about getting together, sometime, but they haven’t found the right time just yet. So the Hopkins’ grieve together. The other night George was telling Mary a story about their son that she had never heard before.

“We talk about Joel a lot,” Mary says. “I ask George about it, about what he thinks about. He said he finds it hard because they were together so much. He said he remembers being in the backyard. Joel was only little. There was a crow, or something, driving us crazy and George shot it. He had no idea how he hit it.

“But Joel looks up at him and says, ‘Dad, you are the best shot in the world.’ He really admired George.”

George Hopkins wasn’t home when his wife and I spoke. He was down at the wharf with his two surviving sons, Nathan and Jessie, also fishermen. It is lobster season. They were selling their catch. It has been a good year, so far.

George used to fish off the Grand Banks when he was younger. But now, especially now, the Hopkins do most of their fishing closer to shore. Mary waits for them at home. Her thoughts often drifting out to sea, to wherever Joel is.

He was born for the boats, that one. He was lost. It has been a year. She misses him so.

“You call me back anytime,” Mary Hopkins says, as we say goodbye. “I could talk about Joel all day long.”